The Impossible Podcast

Three weeks after major kidney cancer surgery, Matt Hill is back, and his health is improving. In this solo episode he talks about who he woke up as. Before surgery, Matt kept saying he didn’t know who he would be on the other side. This is the answer. For most of 2026 he ran on four hours of sleep, skipped training and worked past midnight. He thought that was the Be Impossible mindset. Then a bi...

Weeks After a 727-Pound Squat, His Body Was Shutting Down He was the strongest he had ever been; and he had no idea how close he was to not being here at all. A year ago, Paul McSween deadlifted 701 pounds and squatted 727 in the same week. Days before his meet, he went to the ER feeling lightheaded and found out his body was in metabolic collapse: active pancreatitis, dangerously high blood sugar...

A Sub-5 Mile and a 500-Pound Squat in One Day: The Dad of Four With a Day Job The most impressive thing about Ben isn’t the 500-pound squat; it’s that he does it with four kids, a full-time job, and a business on the side. Ben Barker helps dads build their lives on faith, fitness and fatherhood, and he’s honest that he’s still working on all three. In this conversation he and Matt trade the practi...

One Week Before Cancer Surgery: The Story I'm Choosing to Tell Myself At 18, he was wheeled down a cold, too-bright hallway to have his leg amputated. Thirteen years later, he's walking that same hallway again. Matt recorded this in the week before surgery for a second cancer: not a return of the Ewing sarcoma he survived in 2013, but a new, stage one kidney cancer, caught early after a...

Two Veterans Are Opening a 24-Hour Gym for Anyone Stuck in a Dark Place Some come home from war and find the fight was never the hardest part. Terry Miller returns to the show, this time with Dave Hall, an Army veteran with two tours in Iraq, and together they're opening Iron Valor Barbell in Reynoldsburg, Ohio: a 24-hour strength gym built around serving veterans and open to anyone who needs...

All links: https://impossibleperformance.com/ Some people survive the day that changes everything; a rare few decide, in hindsight, that it was the best day they ever had. At six years old, on a crisp and windy morning at a fun run, Sydney was standing exactly where her mother told her to wait when a race banner caught the wind and came down on her foot. Twenty-one surgeries, compartment syndrome,...

The trophy lasts a day; the individual you build to earn it lasts a lifetime. Russell Holland lost his mother at seventeen, grew up without his father, and was working two and three jobs at a time before he realized the path he was on had only one ending. Structure saved him: a football coach who saw something worth fighting for, a scholarship to military school, and eventually the Navy. Somewhere...

Some skills are built for years before you learn what they were being built for. Matt opens in the warm-up room of a meet last August: 402 pounds on the bar, a hundred under his opener, and a grinding, ugly rep that nearly did not go up. In minutes he had to walk onto a platform with a hundred people watching and put 500 pounds on his back, as an amputee athlete squatting on a prosthetic rated to...

All links: https://impossibleperformance.com/ Some people survive the day that changes everything; a rare few decide, in hindsight, that it was the best day they ever had. At six years old, on a crisp and windy morning at a fun run, Sydney was standing exactly where her mother told her to wait when a race banner caught the wind and came down on her foot. Twenty-one surgeries, compartment syndrome,...

The Story You Think Doesn't Matter Is the One Someone Needs to Hear A story untold is just potential energy at rest; the moment you tell it, that energy is released, and it never stops. In this one, Matt and Austin step back from the guests and talk about the thing underneath all of it: the power of a Story. Why sharing yours is one of the most cathartic acts there is; why three and a half ye...

From Addiction and a Stroke to One of the Strongest Adaptive Lifters Alive She was broken all the way down; then she decided the story was hers to write. Arlyn Smith returns to the podcast after years away, now one of the strongest female adaptive lifters in the world and fresh off the USPC ParaNationals. Her road here ran through addiction, a stroke, ataxia, and profound battles with her mental h...

A Chemo Drug Nearly Killed Me; Then My Doctor Told Me to Take It Again Resiliency is not never getting hit; it is how fast you return to baseline. One minute into an infusion, a chemo drug closed my airways without my consent; Matt hit the red button, the room filled with ten people, and IV Benadryl pulled me back. Thirty minutes later my oncologist sat down beside me, calm and direct, and told me...

I Was Just Diagnosed With Cancer for the Second Time Twelve years ago, cancer built the man I became; last Friday, it returned. In 2013, at eighteen, Ewing sarcoma took my leg and very nearly took my life; it also built the Be Impossible mindset from the ground up. I learned that you do not beat the impossible by staring at the mountain; you become, one ordinary day at a time, the version of yours...

He knew before his chest hit the floor that he was going to be alright. Paul Oneid has built a life out of walking into rooms where he does not belong yet. A Canadian kid with no football background trying to coach Division I athletes; a lifter stepping into a gym holding four of the strongest men on earth; a coach who saved twelve thousand dollars to work three months for free. In this conversati...

Some people are broken by the storm; a Powerhouse is the one it cannot stop. Kaitlyn Kenna grew up watching her father vanish into opioid addiction: the doctor-hopping, the withdrawals, the eviction, the slow erasure of the man he used to be. In college she fought a battle of her own and is still winning it today. Out of all of it came a refusal to lie: to herself first, then to everyone who follo...

Why Experiencing Another Culture Might Be the Antidote to a Chaotic World Two farmers on an Italian mountain could have walked right by; they didn't. In this solo episode, Austin takes the long way through a simple idea: that beneath every border, accent, and unfamiliar meal, we are all still human, born in different places. From four broke Americans stuck on a rock beneath Mount Vesuvius, to...

Doctors Told My Parents I Wouldn't Survive the Night. One physician refused to give up; that single decision is why this story exists. On what should have been a final dose, the treatment meant to save him turned: sepsis, then septic shock, then organ by organ giving way. His parents were asked to prepare for a goodbye. And in that room, where the Standard had already been lowered to mere sur...

Welcome to The Impossible! Organic gardening Isn't a trend for him, It's how he protects his Family.  Brian Heller has been surrounded by the warmth and responsibility of having and maintaining a home garden. Now we hear how he has turned this garden into a service for teaching the community on how to do better for themselves and their loved ones.  Fruits and vegetables can be a plentifu...

Welcome to The Impossible! Today, Austin is sharing some of his thoughts on the power and importance of Movement. Movement of the body, and what that can do as it percolates through the other domains of performance.  Let us think for a moment, what we could all do for ourselves, and for other, within the school of movement.  Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: htt...

Some stories stay with you long after the conversation ends. This is one of them. In this episode of The Impossible Podcast, we sit down with Mikayla, a woman whose path to motherhood was anything but simple. After fighting through multiple failed attempts to get pregnant, she finally received the news she'd been praying for. Then, just two weeks later, everything changed: a breast cancer dia...

Welcome to The Impossible! Almost 17 months into remission, Austin has been yearning for this checkup. Not only to answer the question of "Has it come back"? But also, to allow him peace with moving forward in life.  We discuss here how my mind has been whirling around of recent, with this scan on the horizon.  Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https:/...

Being from a small town in Ohio, some can allow this fact to slow them or stop them from pursuing their goals of reaching their potential.  Liz Strong is a prime example of pursuing those goals, of which can propel you to the many stages of life. Or in this case, to the stages of OCB Bikini professional competitions.  We find out what is the driver of her success, and the calling of returning home...

You have built that Impossible self: forged from the time facing adversity and enduring the suffering.  Now you need to focus that pathway towards achieving those goals of which drive you towards a brighter future.  How are you able to determine what pathway will serve you best?  Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https://www.skool.com/the-orion-collective-8700 F...

Lore would say that we came from the mists of trails and tribulations. A pathway of which led us to becoming Impossible through the fire and flame. Within the crucibles of life and its' challenging potentials: We are doing that of which we knew needed to be done.  Matthew and Austin are offering a coaching program, to those who are called to pursuing the Impossible. And today, Austin shares j...

In this episode of The Impossible Podcast, Canadian police officer Jesse David shares his raw, unfiltered journey from a devastating farm accident to becoming an amputee who returned to full patrol duty. On July 25, 2022, a routine day on the family farm turned into a fight for survival when Jesse received a brutal compound fracture and severe infection. Jesse dragged himself 400 yards through a w...